It's understandable that people tend to focus on the history that most matches their experience.
And yet, it still surprises me how much we here in the West tend to focus on the American,
and British experience in the Second World War, and how little we seem to understand about the war
in the East. But to give an idea of the contrast between the two, at the end of 1944 nearly eight
times as many German soldiers had been killed on the Eastern Front as had been killed on the
Western Front. The Western Allies, excluding China, suffered about 1.2 million military
casualties during the Second World War. The Soviet Union suffered between 8 and 12 million military
casualties during the Second World War. In June, we in America tend to focus on the anniversary
June 6, the anniversary of D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history. But we talk much
less about another anniversary, June 22nd. The anniversary of the largest invasion, of any kind,
in human history. The defense of Brest fortress on the opening days of Operation Barbarossa,
the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941, is history that deserves to be remembered.
Historians have described many reasons for Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union
in 1941. Those can be a matter of dispute, but most frankly conclude that conflict between the
two was inevitable. Hitler seems to have come to that conclusion by at least the middle of 1940,
when General Erich Marcks was tasked with developing a plan for the invasion of the
Soviet Union officially called Operation Draft East, but more commonly called the
Marcks Plan. The Marcks Plan advocated for the occupation of what it called the A-A line,
that is the occupation of a line going from the city of Arkhangelsk on the White Sea in northern
Russia, to the City of Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea. The line was thought to be defensible,
and would so deprive the Soviet Union of resources that they would cease to
be a military threat. The plan suggested that the line could be reached in a quick military
campaign that would be achieved before winter set in. That confidence was likely derived from
poor assessments of Soviet military readiness, based on the loss of officers in Stalin's Purges,
and what was seemed to be a poor performance by the Soviets against Finland in the Winter War, in
1939 and 40. The rapid German victory over France in 1940 further bolstered German confidence.
Hitler decided to name the operationalization of the Marcks Plan, Operation Barbarossa, after 12th
century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The plan was so confident that it didn't even
include the distribution of winter gear, or the winterization of vehicles, because it assumed
that all the objectives would be met before the advent of winter. The attack was originally
planned to occur May 15 1941. The sheer scale of the invasion was nearly beyond comprehension. Some
180 axis divisions, including over 6,000 armored vehicles, nearly a million horses, and 65% of
the German air force. Approximately 3.8 million personnel were scheduled to attack along a front
nearly 2,000 miles long. But the army that they were facing was also massive. In June of 1941,
the Soviet Union had nearly 6 million troops under arms, and were mobilizing a reserve
of some 14 million. They had more than 25,000 tanks, a hundred thousand pieces of artillery,
and 18,000 warplanes; the largest air force in the world. It is often asserted that the Red Army was
unprepared for the German attack despite warnings from British, American, and even Stalin's own
intelligence sources. That is only partially true. The Soviet Union had undertaken both a defense
plan, and the mobilization plan. But Stalin seems to have been convinced that Hitler would
not attack only two years after having signed a nonaggression pact, and Soviet forces were
still preparing when the attack first came. They faced many obstacles of organization and supply,
lacked adequate transport, and while they had some of the most advanced armor in the world
at the time, most of their armored forces were outdated, poorly supplied and equipped,
and their crews partly trained. And while the Red Army was slowly preparing for the
eventualities of German attack that they thought likely, Stalin was not keen to provoke Hitler.
Records from Soviet archives indicate that the Soviet High Command underestimated the
German threat, and ignored information about the upcoming invasion. While they were strengthening
their border at the time, they were reticent to bring their troops to full combat readiness for
fear that that would provoke the Germans into an attack that it turns out was already imminent.
The date of the attack was moved from May to June. There is some debate why the attack was
delayed. Maybe because a coup in Yugoslavia had necessitated a German intervention,
or maybe because an unusually wet winter meant that rivers were still swollen in May. But the
attack commenced at 3:15 a.m. on June 22nd, without a formal declaration of war. Reich
Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, announced the attack to the German people on the radio,
portraying it as, “a European crusade against Bolshevism.” The axis attack was divided roughly
into three commands, Army Groups North, Center, and South. Army Group Center's initial strategic
goal was to defeat the Soviet armies in Belarus, between Lithuania and Latvia in the north,
and the Ukrainian to the south, and occupy the city of Smolensk along the Dnieper River.
The ancient city of Brest lies at the border between Poland and Belarus, at the confluence
of the Mukhavets River into the Bug River. The confluence of rivers was a strategic point,
and fortifications have been built there as early as the 10th century. Between 1830 and 1842,
the former medieval castle was replaced by a modern fortification, covering an area of
nearly four square kilometers. Brest Fortress was part of the fortress strategy of Tsar Nicholas II,
and was intended to protect the western periphery of the Russian Empire. It was an impressive
fortification with a central citadel linked to outlying fortifications built on artificial
islands. The walls of the Citadel were some 2 meters thick. The fortress had put up a brief but
stout defense during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Having captured the fortress and city,
the Germans then handed over the city to the Soviets under the terms of the 1939
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The secret pact that had defined the boundaries of Soviet and German
Spheres of Influence as part of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. The German and Soviet
armies had held a military parade celebrating the turnover on September 22nd 1939. 21 months later,
the Germans had decided to throw away that pact and now had to retake the fortress,
which is on the front line, on the very first day of the invasion.
On June 22nd 1941, Brest fortress was garrisoned by about 9,000 Soviet troops,
mostly from rifle brigades, but also from border forces and artillery. In addition,
about 300 civilian family members of the garrison were also inside the fortress.
For the Germans, the task of taking the fortress was assigned to the 17,000 strong,
45th Infantry Division, which also had significant artillery and armored support.
At first, Barbarossa struck like lightning. Within the first few hours of the attack,
Soviet Command and Control were destroyed across the front, paralyzing command,
and preventing organized defense. Soviet air defense units have been operating under
orders not to attack German planes for fear of provoking the Germans. In the initial confusion,
as many as 2000 Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground. Communications were disrupted,
and supply depots were destroyed. Brest fortress was the tip of the attack, described by some as
the site of the first major battle of the campaign. There was an initial twenty nine
minute artillery barrage including the terrifying German Nebelwerfer rockets on the unprepared
fortress. German troops crossed the Bug under the cover of the barrage surprising the defenders,
who were unable to mount an organized defense. The fortress was encircled by 9:00 a.m. But while the
first phase of Operation Barbarossa moved quickly, and Army Group Center bypassed Brest fortress and
sped towards the city of Minsk, encircling and destroying entire Soviet Army groups,
the beleaguered defenders of Brest fortress defended strong points. Caught by surprise
with many of their officers killed, or wounded, outnumbered, short of supplies, and cut off from
the outside world, they held their ground. German assaults were repulsed, and attempts to take
the fortress stalled. Positions were only taken after fierce fighting, and often resistance only
stopped when a building was completely leveled to the ground. The civilians carried supplies,
scouted enemy movements, and even took up arms. On the 26th, some of the defenders tried to break out
but were unsuccessful. Unable to break defenders in the Eastern port, the Germans finally had their
Air Force bomb it to rubble. The commander of the 45th division did not declare the fortress
captured until June 30th. A stunning defense given the odds. Yet isolated defenders kept fighting,
with some holding on possibly as late as July 23rd, although there's no record of
that defense. Graffiti found inside the fortress read, “Will die, but will not leave the fortress.”
In the end Soviet casualties in the defense of Brest fortress were about 6,800 captured,
and 2,000 killed. German casualties were 429 killed, and 668 wounded. And if that doesn't
sound like a large number it's really a huge number, it represents nearly 5 percent of the
total German casualties on the Eastern Front in June of 1941. At a time of almost universally
disastrous news for the Soviet Union, the defense of Brest fortress represented a heroic stand,
at a point when the rest of the front was in near total collapse. But strategically, the battle was
of little importance. The crossroads of the city of Brest were captured by the German army on the
very first day. The defense of Brest fortress is interesting in that it was literally forgotten
history for a period of time. Because the fortress was cut off from outside communication,
the Soviets didn't even know that the battle had been fought until they captured some
of the records of the German 45th Infantry Division in March of 1942. And the defense
of Brest Castle wasn't widely publicized in the Soviet Union until the mid 1950s.
A museum at the fortress was opened in 1956, and an investigative report on the surviving
defenders published in 1957. It then became a point of pride, and of Soviet propaganda
stressing fraternity between the people of Russia and Belarus. The propaganda
at times has overstated the defense, including a narrative that the fortress held out for 32 days,
while in fact organized defense lasted nine days. The fortress was designated a hero
fortress in 1965, and the Memorial Heroic Brest Fortress Complex was opened in 1971.
Despite its initial success Operation Barbarossa eventually collapsed in the battle for Moscow.
Today it is considered by many to be amongst the worst military blunders in history, and the key
cause of the final defeat of Nazi Germany. The so-called Eastern Front was one of the bloodiest,
most brutal conflicts in human history, and was characterized by things like war crimes,
mistreatment of the civilian population, and brutal treatment of prisoners of war. It cost
the lives of nearly 26 million Soviet citizens. The museum of Brest is still very popular,
and the defense of Brest fortress is well known in Belarus and Russia,
but still nearly forgotten here in the West. The defenders of Brest fortress, cut off,
outnumbered and outgunned are a symbol of the determination of the Soviet people,
in what the Russians call, The Great Patriotic War. It is history that deserves to be remembered.
I'm the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this edition of my series of short snippets of
forgotten history about ten minutes long. And if you did enjoy it, please go ahead and click
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